editions of Nestorian service-books. Other bodies have smaller missions. The Danish Lutherans commissioned a converted Nestorian, Nestorius George Malech, to work as a missionary for them in 1893.[1] There is a small Baptist mission.[2]
The Russians, too, have been active here. At one time it seemed as if the whole Nestorian body would turn Orthodox. In 1827 a number of Nestorian families fled to Russian territory at Erivan and joined the Orthodox Church.[3] Later, at repeated intervals, Nestorians have asked Russia for help and protection, and have declared themselves willing to be Orthodox in return. In 1898 a Nestorian bishop, with four other clergymen, went to St. Petersburg, said they represented their nation, and abjured their heresies. They came back with Russian missionaries and made a propaganda of the Orthodox faith. The Russians built a mission-house, set up a press, and for a time made many converts.[4] But their fair promises were not fulfilled. The Tsar sent no army to make them free and powerful; so the converts slipped back to the obedience of Mâr Shim‘un. The Russian mission among them only vegetates; though occasionally one hears of Russian clergy labouring among the Nestorians still. When to all these missions we add the long-established and zealous Catholic clergy, who have built up the Uniate Chaldæan Church, we realize that the Nestorians, once themselves so great missioners, now know what it is to be the objects of copious missionizing.
The attitude of these foreign missions towards the Nestorian sect is very curious. Of course, that of the Catholics and Orthodox is quite simple. They frankly make converts from the heretical body; with, however, this difference, that the Catholics make Uniates. A Nestorian who joins them does not give up his rite, nor any legitimate principle or custom of his nation. He abjures his heresy, acknowledges the Council of Ephesus, and so
- ↑ G. D. Malech: History of the Syrian Nation (Minneapolis, U.S.A., 1910), pp. 378–390.
- ↑ Ib. p. 342.
- ↑ Avril: La Chaldée chrétienne, p. 22.
- ↑ The Russians claimed 20,000 converts in 1900. They built an Orthodox Church at Urrai, founded forty parishes and sixty schools. See the Échos d'Orient (L'Église Nestorienne, by A. Ratel), vol. vii. (1904), p. 349. It seems that practically all Nestorians in Persia turned Orthodox, though most appear to have gone back since (Kurds and Christians, pp. 140–141).
